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| Education Secretary nominee Miguel Cardona testifies before the Senate on Feb. 3. The Senate confirmed Miguel Cardona as Education Secretary on Monday.(ANNA MONEYMAKER-POOL/GETTY IMAGES) |
THE SENATE CONFIRMED Miguel Cardona as Education Secretary on Monday, with Republicans joining Democrats to make the appointment official with bipartisan backing, 64-33.
"Dr. Cardona is a public servant," said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who as a former member of the House represented Cardona's hometown of Meriden. "He's a consensus builder. And he's uniquely qualified to help our schools reopen safely, address the gaps that this pandemic has exacerbated among students and tackle racial inequities in our education system."
Cardona, a newcomer to the national education scene, checks many boxes having served as a teacher, principal, district superintendent and most recently as the head of Connecticut's Education Department.
Notably, he's spent the entirety of his education career in Connecticut – and only the last year and a half in the state's top post – which has allowed him to, for the most part, sidestep the most toxic education battles of the last decade. He's not afraid to push back against teachers unions, but, as a former member of one himself, he's rarely had to. And while he doesn't go out of his way to support charter schools, he's also not on a warpath against them.
That background went a long way in contributing to his drama-free confirmation process and his ability to garner the support of Senate Republicans.
Cardona's confirmation was received warmly by most national education organizations, from teachers unions to private school choice advocates to civil rights groups – a sharp contrast to the warring statements they've grown accustomed to lobbing over the last four years.
With most of his Education Department staff already in place, Cardona is expected to get working on President Joe Biden's top priority – meeting his goal of reopening the majority of elementary and middle schools for in-person learning in the first 100 days of his administration.
Cardona doesn't have the authority to force school districts to reopen for in-person learning since the federal government plays a minimized role in K-12 education, with the bulk of the funding responsibilities and decision-making power belonging to state and local governments. But with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention having finally issued guidance for how and when schools can reopen safely and the department's Institute for Education Statistics in the process of creating a database of school reopening strategies, Cardona and the team he's assembled stand poised to take a more hands-on approach to helping districts reopen than the previous administration.
Moreover, with a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package on the line and a president who wants to triple Title I funding for poor students and supercharge federal investment for students with disabilities, Cardona stands to oversee a potentially historic investment in K-12 education. And, given the public school system's state of paralysis and the growing demands to steer more resources to the country's most vulnerable students and give parents an elevated role, Cardona also stands to be one of the most consequential education secretaries in history.
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